“This is Denmark!” Ragnarok pointed. “And England where the Saxons are. I have been there on raids. Iceland. I have been there also and beyond- here to the land called Greenland by Eric the Red. I traveled there two summers ago.”
The map ended on the left with Greenland. Ragnarok had heard of lands beyond but he had never seen a map that detailed. What amazed him were the lands that extended across the map to the right.
Tam Nok nodded. Her finger slid way across the map to the east. “I am from here.”
Ragnarok was astounded. Her finger had gone across Norway, past Kiev, across the lands of the steppe horsemen, fierce fighters of whom Ragnarok had heard amazing stories, and many times further than that to a land that abutted a sea he had never heard of.
“My kingdom is called Khmer. My city, Angkor Thom. I am a priestess of the temple of Angkor Wat.”
“I have never heard of these places,” Ragnarok whispered. “You told me you were a Disir, a maiden of the Gods of Asgaard.”
“The Gods-” Tam Nok swept her hand around her head taking in the world- “have different names in different places, but they are the same Gods. You would call me a Disir; in my own land I am a priestess.
“I have traveled for over a year to get here and I have much further to go.” Her finger slid back across the map to where it ended in the west. “I must travel beyond the edge of this map.”
“To where?” Ragnarok asked.
“I do not know exactly where yet.”
“Why are the Valkyries after you?” Ragnarok asked.
Tam Nok didn’t even raise her head, her voice coming from inside the folds of her hood. “They want to stop me.”
“Why?”
“I have knowledge they want no one to have. Knowledge that can help man defeat them and the Dark Ones of the Shadow who send them.”
The sound of the water against the hull helped erase the last of the battle-rage and Ragnarok turned, putting his back against the hull, his feet stretched out. He was trying to work all this new information into his mind.
Askell shifted around and continued his work, having cleaned out the wound, he now was preparing to close the gash. Numerous scars criss-crossed Ragnarok’s body and he was used to the pain of wounds.
“How did you know my name?” Ragnarok asked.
Tam Nok’s head came up and she pushed back the hood. Those dark eyes peered at Ragnarok. “Like the knowledge the Valkyries wish to destroy, I know many things without having to be told.” She looked about. “Where were you going before you met me?”
Ragnarok laughed, even as Askell pierced his shoulder with a bone needle. “You just said you knew many things without being told.”
“I am tired,” Tam Nok said. “I do not have the energy for word games.”
The smile left Ragnarok’s face. “I do not like running, woman.”
“It was not a battle you could have won,” Tam Nok said.
“That is not the important thing,” Ragnarok said. “It is more important to fight bravely.”
“I will tell you what is important,” Tam Nok said.
“Be still!” Askell hissed as Ragnarok’s boots slammed into the bottom of the boat. The rage had returned, but he bit back his hasty retort. He forced himself to remain still as Askell finished the last stitch.
Askell used his teeth to cut the animal gut string he had used to sew up Ragnarok’s shoulder. He put the needle back in his bag and went back to his place. The other men close by all tried to appear as if they were not listening, but Ragnarok knew they were. There was no such thing as privacy on a longship. He pulled the tunic up over his shoulder and tried the arm. Some blood seeped through the stitches, and there was pain, but he could use it that was all that was important. The burn on his chest was an ache he had already gotten used to.
Then he returned his attention to the woman, keeping his voice low. “You do not scare me, priestess. This is my ship. One of my crew was killed back there by your demons. He did not receive a proper burial but at least he died with his sword in his hand, a good death. Another of my crew was taken away. They were both good men. Brave warriors. You say you are a Disir, but that is only your word. You will have to do much more to convince me that you are what you say you are.”
“Where are-” Tam Nok paused and rephrased her question and changed her tone. “Captain of this fine ship, where were you headed?”
“The Faroes, and from there Iceland,” Ragnarok said. He pointed on the map to the two locations.
She also referred to the map. “I must get to this place.”
“England,” Ragnarok said. “That is south of here and dangerous. We have spilled much Saxon blood over the years. They fear us, but if they catch one ship alone, they will be on us like dogs. And it has been well plundered. There is no longer much treasure close to the shore that can be easily taken. It is not in the direction we-”
“I will pay for the transit.”
Ragnarok could sense the interest from those of his crew who could hear. “How?”
Tam Nok reached inside her cloak and pulled out a small leather bag. She slid it across the bench toward Ragnarok. He picked it up and loosened the tie, peering inside. Not quite sure what he was seeing, he spilled the contents out on his palm. Stones and ingots glittered in his palm. Gold and jewels. He had seen such before, during raids on the English and French coasts, but he had never had such a large share.
“I could throw you overboard and just take these and continue on my way,” Ragnarok noted.
“You won’t,” Tam Nok said. “It is not your nature.”
Ragnarok frowned at that and put the stones back in the bag. “Why England?”
“As I said I am looking for something beyond the edge of the map. But in England I will get more information. That is the first place I must look.”
“What are you looking for?”
“A Shield.”
“It can stop the Valkyries and their creatures?”
“It can do much more than that.”
“How do you know this Shield exists?” Ragnarok asked, intrigued by the concept of such a powerful weapon. His ax- Skullcrusher- had been most formidable and never been broken in battle, until now. A weapon even more powerful than that would be worth more than any gold or jewels. He had seen how Thorlak’s shield had not even slowed the creature in the slightest, even though he had seen such blows in battle split a man’s head wide open. The white armor the Valkyries wore was something he had never seen before, as was the golden beam that had burned him.
Tam Nok pulled another piece of parchment out of the tube and tapped it against Ragnarok’s chest just above his burn. “The runes on the writing inside this tell me that. They tell me the Shield to stop the Valkyries and the Ones who will come after the Valkyries exists.”
“Let me see,” Ragnarok said. His mother had taught him the runes, something his father had reluctantly allowed.
Tam Nok unrolled the scroll.
“These are not runes,” Ragnarok squinted at the lines drawn on the paper.
“Not the runes you know,” Tam Nok agreed, “nevertheless, they are runes of another people. An older people. They tell how they defeated the Dark Ones of the Shadow. And how they- the ancient ones- had a weapon. But I do not know where the Shield is. I do not have the map for that. For that I need to go to England and find someone who can give me the rest of the map- the piece that is missing. The piece that shows the lands beyond Greenland, over the sea.”
Ragnarok had heard stories of land beyond Greenland. Vikings who had been caught in a storm while trying to reach Iceland or Greenland and come upon a strange land, where trees came down to the shore. Where there were strange people, Skraelings, who were unlike any people in Europe. As was Tam Nok, Ragnarok thought.
“You are sure there is someone there who has that?” Ragnarok asked.
“I have been told to go to England to find out,” Tam Nok said.
“You trust whoever told you this?”
Ragnarok asked.
Tam Nok pointed up. “I was told by the Gods. I hear their voices. They have always led me in the right direction.”
“Why can’t the Gods tell you where the Shield is, then?” Ragnarok felt pleased with himself for having thought of that, “and skip having to go to this other person?”
“You would not understand,” Tam Nok said. “It is the way things are.”
Ragnarok leaned back once more on the seat considering what she requested. With favorable winds the northern part of England was two days sailing away to the southeast. The Faroes were a day and half, to the north and east. He looked at the map. To think there might be another map showing the lands that Eric the Red had sailed to a generation ago!
“Bjarni,” Ragnarok called to the helmsman. “South, by southeast.”
Chapter 7
THE PRESENT
1999 AD
“We can maintain position using our global positioning receiver and a series of thrusters,” Captain Stanton explained as he led them through a long corridor leading from the helipad on the rear of the Glomar Explorer toward the center of the ship. “Once we arrive on a site we can stay on position within six inches.”
Dane was impressed. The Glomar Explorer appeared even larger when one was actually on board. Chelsea kept close to Dane’s side as they walked along the steel decked corridor. The hum of heavy machinery was in the air, and the ship vibrated slightly.
The corridor ended and they walked onto a gantry-way that angled around a large open poll in the center of the ship. The pool was over a hundred feet long by sixty wide. Above their heads the derrick poked over three hundred feet into the bright blue sky. The walls of the pool were hung with hundreds of lengths of pipe. The dark surface of the ocean lay calm in the pool at the bottom of the opening. Above, the derrick towered over their heads.
“We are capable of lowering seventeen thousand feet of pipe,” Captain Stanton said. “That’s over seven thousand feet deeper than the next best thing available on the market. Better than any standard rig. And we’re much more mobile than any rig.”
“How long until you’re in position?” Sin Fen asked as they crossed the gantry way over the well.
“Another six hours.” He opened another hatch on the far end. “We have a briefing ready to get you up to speed. This way.”
Dane and Chelsea followed the captain and Sin Fen into a conference room. Ariana Michelet was sitting at the head of the table. The only daughter of Paul Michelet, the founder of Michelet Technologies, Ariana had not only had the good taste to be born into one of the richest families in the world, she had also been graced with good looks. Tall and slender, she had olive skin, very little of which was showing given she was wearing a set of black coveralls that looked like a flight suit. A patch on the shoulder showed a silhouette of the Glomar with Michelet Technologies written in script around the edge.
She stood and smiled, reaching down to pet Chelsea. “It is good to see you- both of you,” she said to Dane.
“I’m a little surprised to see you here,” Dane said.
Ariana straightened and stared at him. “Why is that?”
“After the way your father and Foreman tricked you into going into the Angkor gate- and nearly being killed there- I would think you’d be a little leery of getting involved in anything either of them set up.”
She sat down, indicating for them to take their chairs. “I would think the same of you. Foreman got you to go into the Angkor gate twice. I only went once.”
Dane smiled. “Good point.”
“Besides, we own this ship,” she waved her hand to take in the Glomar. “The technology is all ours.”
“So what exactly is the plan?” Dane asked. “What are we going to do? Drill in the middle of the ocean and hope we come up with something?”
Ariana reached forward and hit a couple of buttons. The room darkened and a map appeared on the wall behind her. “We are heading for this spot, about one hundred miles northwest of Puerto Rico. It also happens to be part of the deepest section of the Atlantic, a thousand mile long valley in the ocean floor known at the Puerto Rican Trench. It contains the deepest spot in the Atlantic which also happens to be the exact location we’re heading for.”
“Why am I not surprised at that?” Dane asked.
“It’s called the Milwaukee Depth.” Ariana pointed down. “The bottom there is twenty-seven thousand, four hundred and ninety-three feet that way. You could dump Mount Everest in there and only about fifteen hundred feet of it would stick out of the water.”
“But the good captain here,” Dane pointed at Stanton, “said you could only drill to a depth of seventeen thousand feet.”
“We’re not going to drill,” Ariana said.
Dane waited.
Ariana hit the forward on the machine and a new slide appeared. It showed a drawing of the Glomar Explorer with the pipe going down below it into the ocean. At the end of the pipe, three vertical cylinders were grouped around a thinner central cylinder.
“We plan to go down in stages. We will lower a deep-sea habitat on the end of the drilling pipe to the maximum depth of seventeen thousand feet. That will be our base camp, so to speak, if you wish to reverse the concept of mountain climbing. The habitat, Deeplab IV, is navy. It will meet us at the site.”
“Where’s it coming from?” Dane asked.
“The Navy Undersea Warfare Lab at Norfolk. It was flown to Roosevelt Roads Naval Station on board three C-5 transports and from there it was cross-loaded onto a sub tender and is being assembled as we speak. It will arrive on station over the Milwaukee Deep just about the same time we do.”
“Has the lab ever been down that far before?”
“Deeplab is rated for twenty-thousand feet,” Ariana said.
“Has it been down that deep?” Dane repeated.
“Not yet,” Ariana said.
“Better and better,” Dane commented.
She clicked a button and another version of the map appeared. An outline of the Atlantic, from Bermuda in the north to Puerto Rico in the south, to the US mainland in the west with a black triangle in the center. A much larger yellow triangle covered it “At its widest propagation, the Bermuda Triangle gate was just short of touching the Bahamas, Puerto Rico and Bermuda. Its current size is much smaller, a triangle centered about forty miles to the north of our destination.”
“So the place we’re going to isn’t inside the gate now?” Dane found that unusual.
“No,” Ariana said, “but-” she paused and turned to Sin Fen.
“Give me the good news,” Dane prompted.
Sin Fen spoke up. “The Navy has been surveilling the Bermuda Triangle area for a while at the behest of Mister Foreman using SOSUS in addition to constant surveillance from overhead satellites.”
“What’s SOSUS?” Dane asked.
“A sound surveillance system that tracks submarines,” Sin Fen answered. “The initial SOSUS systems were laid along the Atlantic Coast in the 50s and 60s as the threat of Soviet ballistic submarines increased. Over the years, the Navy expanded the system into the Pacific and closer to the Soviet Union.
“Basically each SOSUS line consists of a bunch of extremely sensitive listening devices on the ocean floor connected by cable and reporting to an on-shore tracking center. The Navy has constantly been upgrading the system and trying new listening devices.”
“Even after the Cold War ended?” Dane asked. He was always alert for parts of explanations that didn’t quite fit, and although he couldn’t 'read’ Sin Fen, he could read the way Ariana and Captain Stanton were reacting to her words and he knew he was, as usual, only getting part of the story.
“Even after the Cold War,” Sin Fen. “The navy isn’t stupid. They got money to continue working on SOSUS by tying it in with several civilian and government agencies to do a variety of tasks other than track submarines. SOSUS now listens for underwater earthquakes, volcanoes and even tracks whales for biologists.”
“Very interesting,” Dane said. “What did SOSUS pick up?”
“Even before Mister Foreman investigated and we got the map off the Scorpion,” Sin Fen said, “the area known as the Bermuda Triangle has always raised quite a bit of speculation. Over the centuries numerous ships- and more recently planes- have disappeared while in this area.”
“Bull,” Dane said in mild voice.
Sin Fen simply raised an eyebrow.
Dane amplified his objection. “As you may have noticed, I did some reading on the way down here. The insurance company Lloyds of London- who ought to know since they insure ships and planes- did a study and found that the area delineated as the Bermuda Triangle had no statistically significant higher losses than anywhere else. Also, many of the ships and planes that people claim disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle were nowhere near the area when they disappeared. Some were hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from that triangle you’re showing.”
“You are quite correct,” Sin Fen said. “However, there is something in the Bermuda Triangle. It is not so much that ships and planes enter the gate and disappear, we think it is more a case of something from the gate goes to the ships and planes and makes them disappear.”
“What is this thing?”
“We don’t know- yet,” Sin Fen said. “What we do know is that something comes out of the gate and travels to the depths of the Puerto Rican trench every once in a while and returns to the gate.”
“Why this spot?” Dane asked.
“We don’t know.” Sin Fen said. “However, special imaging using a muon detector in Japan, has-”
“A what?” Dane asked.
“I’ll explain it to you later,” Ariana said. “Suffice it to say that this detector can pick up a gate and the gate’s influence in our world.”
“OK, go ahead,” Dane said.
Sin Fen indicated for Ariana to change the slides. A new picture appeared, showing the Bermuda Triangle gate outlined in red. A thin red dotted line went south from it to the Milwaukee depth where there was a red circle drawn.
Atlantis: Bermuda Triangle a-2 Page 8